You Are and She Is
by Kaj-Nrig
Summary: It's been three years since he impersonated Zack, but Cloud now finds himself facing a haunting dilemma: When he knows nothing about Zack except that the man saved his life, how can he be sure that his thoughts, emotions, and actions are really his own?
1. 05

A/N: This story is greatly influenced by _Photograph_ by Scribbler. Read _Photograph_. It's a great piece by a great author.

This was originally meant to be a long 15,000-word oneshot, but VulcanElf convinced me to split it into chapters, and so I've decided to simply separate each scene instead of trying to "mix and match." So keep that in mind if you find yourself reading a ridiculously brief 400-word chapter.

And speaking of VulcanElf, thanks go to her for proofreading this big honking work of mine not once but twice _and while_ dealing with my idiotic questions and constant pestering. And to Evernia, likewise for putting up with me throughout the Beta process.

Final Fantasy VII is the sole property of Square Enix Co., Ltd. I use this property without permission for free entertainment purposes only.

* * *

-00-

He thought a lot about Zack in the days following the destruction of Deepground. He didn't know why; there was no reason for it. The dark-haired man simply wove in and out of his thoughts like a friendly ghost. Not that that was particularly odd – Zack _was_ one of the few important people in his life, and he _had_ been impersonating him as recently as three years ago.

But it had never been anything like this. He found himself dreaming of Zack, of things they did together – practicing at the shooting range, going out for a night on the town, revisiting Nibelheim. The dreams were always so vivid, so lifelike, that he nearly mistook them for memories. Even his dreams of Nibelheim only ever had one oddity or another – a misplaced barrel here, an overturned pillow there... a SOLDIER Cloud here, an infantryman Zack there.

But one dream always stood out from the rest. One nightmare unlike all the others he had.

He dreamt of the suspended Mako chamber, the one that no doubt still existed today, the hallucinogenic green Mako that surrounded him. He dreamt of intolerable pain, intolerable... _shifting_, as if his bones were melting away and rematerializing. In this nightmare, Cloud scratched feebly at the chamber walls, scratched something to the man in the other chamber. The man who, to Cloud, existed an entire green mist-world apart.

"Let's get out of here." Cloud's fingernail tore and broke and bled in the dream, just like it had in his memories. Even now, his right index finger had an unnatural configuration to it.

In his memories, he knew that Zack had replied. He knew because he had seen it once before. "Feeding time, that's our chance." He knew that that was what Zack had written.

But in his dream, no such response came. Instead, in that distorted, watery prison, Cloud heard, coming from far out in the realm of reality, a cry. A baby's cry, a screeching cry that made him whirl around to pinpoint the source. And when it disappeared and Cloud returned to Zack...

There was nobody. Cloud pounded and pounded and pounded, but Zack never appeared in that other chamber, no Zack to free him, no Zack to help him in this dark Underworld.

The baby's wail seemed to echo Cloud's desperation, reaching a crescendo as his hysteria did, and through the misty world of half-solid objects, he heard something, the sound of something sharp clawing at something hard.

Cloud looked around and began to notice grains of glass swirling past him. They floated on down, down... down...

When he looked up, half-mad with Jenova poisoning and half-mad with hysteria, Cloud was met with these jagged, misshapen words:

YOU ARE MY LEGACY

Each time, he woke up in a numb freeze, a perturbing sensation that hesitatingly escaped his body, receding slowly from his head to his feet.

Even after the eerie feeling went away and he washed away the horror-induced sweat, though, he could still hear. He heard the cry of the poor child, and within it, he heard the bone-chilling traces of his own voice.

* * *

**You Are and She Is**  
By Kaj-Nrig

* * *

-05-

Water sluiced up his face, then down the surfaces of his skin before petering off and back into the sink.

He watched the droplets as they fell. They splashed against the porcelain sink bowl and flickered into emptiness.

He paused briefly, his eyes dilating as he looked at nothing in general. He thought he had done this before, he thought this might've been a habit of his, but he wasn't sure. It could've been Cloud, or it could've been Zack.

Without a thought, he reached down and turned off the faucet with his right hand while pawing for a towel on the wall with his left. When his hand met air, he frowned and tilted his head ever so slightly. The towel rack was right there along the wall-

Sighing, he turned around and pulled the towel on the back wall to his face. That part just now, he realized, had been Zack. After toweling off the excess tap water, he turned back to examine himself in the mirror.

The eyes flickered for a moment, as if confused between a cloudy blue and a fair blue.

"Cloud?"

Tifa entered through the batwing doors to his right, and he listened to their gentle swinging as she stopped next to him.

"Hi, Tifa."

She placed a calming hand on his bicep and squeezed – not so much a squeeze as a confirmation of his existence. Then she removed her hand, her fingers just brushing the skin of his arm. He enjoyed the way she always seemed to know just what to do with him; of all the things Tifa had done to help him, making him feel more like himself was what he was most grateful for.

"Same dream?"

He nodded.

"That's the..."

"Fourth time," he explained before turning to her and smiling. "Thanks again."

She smiled back, and their proximity to each other was deafening. "You want to talk about it?" she asked, but it was clear from the look in her eyes that she wanted to do much more than just talk.

He saw the desire in her eyes – he was sure it was in his own – but he shook his head. "I'm fine. You should go back to sleep."

"Only if you do."

"Yeah..." He looked back at the mirror. He saw himself standing next to Tifa. "Yeah, let's get some sleep."


	2. 02

-02-

His first dream of Nibelheim was not a happy one. Cloud floated inside that misty green tube, and he could barely see the dim lab surrounding him.

A baby's cry abruptly streaked through the wetness of his entrapment, making Cloud flinch and grate his teeth even as his insides... _shifted_. He felt his organs roiling in the suspended state, felt them expand and contract in wholly unnatural ways. Nauseous, Cloud took a glance over at Zack.

"Let's get out of here," Cloud scrabbled into the glass, and there was strangely no pain even as the skin broke and the nail tore off and the bone twisted.

The baby's cry had long since ceased, but it still rang in Cloud's head, and he suddenly heaved over - if that was an appropriate term given the situation. The half-digested mixture of bread, stomach fluids, and "nutritional supplement" quickly tumbled out into the rich Mako liquid. Coughing out the remnants of his meal, Cloud turned his attention back to Zack.

Zack peered at him through the foggy green haze, his open palms pressed against the walls of his own chamber, as if begging for release.

Suddenly, Zack pulled back and slammed his fingers into the glass, causing a grating screech to reach even Cloud's ears. He stared as Zack clawed furiously, and when their eyes met, Cloud saw nothing remotely related to Zack. He saw the eyes of some dark and mischievous demon, eyes that sparkled and laughed as it used Zack's body to claw something into the glass, a sharp, ominous engraving.

YOU ARE MY LEGACY

Their eyes never left each other, and before long, Zack ceased his mad slashing. From across the green world of Mako, Cloud saw the older man sneer and raise both hands. Then there was a shattering of glass, and Zack poured out of the tube along with the Mako contained therein, disappearing from sight.

* * *


	3. 06

-06-

The morning after was like the three times before – the aftermath of that baby's cry echoed through him like an aching elegy. It crept from his mind to slowly fill his reality until he was awake, much like his alarm clock had done when he was a child... or when _he_ was a child... he wasn't sure. As he lay in the crumpled sheets of his bed, his eyes slowly opened to reveal the world, and then the wail became something just above background noise.

He stretched slowly, carefully. He didn't want Tifa to hear his distress and awaken. God knew how tiring it was to run the Seventh Heaven almost always single-handedly, and he knew she needed her sleep.

By the time his feet touched the hardwood floor, the baby's cry had vanished.

For a profound moment, he wondered if he really got out of bed this way. Was it muscle memory? Was it false muscle memory?

He looked at Tifa, at her peaceful, sleeping form. Perhaps "peaceful" wasn't quite an accurate word. She looked peaceful all the time, even when irate or in the heat of battle – the woman had that calm and collectedness that only a long-time practitioner of the martial arts had. After searching, he thought maybe "serene" was what he was looking for. But no, that was a word that better suited Aerith. Finally, he decided that there was no word to describe Tifa in her sleep.

As he continued to gaze at her sleeping form, he mulled over the unusual chain of thoughts he'd just had. They were his thoughts, but there was something alien about them. Something not wholly... him.

Then again, who _was_ he?

Chuckling at himself, he took one last look at Tifa's unnameable slumber before making his way to the bathroom.

After the steam began wafting and filling the shower stall, he found himself once again staring as the shower droplets cascaded off his face and fell into nothingness. It was an odd habit, he knew, but he always enjoyed watching those million bits of raindrops fall to a million distinct points in space, and yet disappear into one single emptiness. Whenever he imagined that wholesome emptiness, he imagined the Lifestream.

Turning to let the water warm his neck and shoulders, he brought his right hand up to be examined. He looked at the index finger, scrutinizing it as if he'd never seen it before. The final third of his finger tilted ever so slightly toward the middle finger and twisted ever so gently back, a clear sign of a poorly healed dislocation.

While toweling off, he wondered: How had Zack's index finger fared?

* * *


	4. 01

-01-

The life of an ex-soldier was something that required adjustment... especially for an ex-SOLDIER. At first, he'd been more than ecstatic to come back and live quietly again with Tifa in her rebuilt Seventh Heaven. As time wore on and he became re-acquainted with the life of a delivery man, he thought that living as a normal person would finally be possible. After all, he had finally put his past behind him.

Zack started around that time.

He had always had thoughts about Zack, about what he had done for him. But he quickly realized that the only thing he knew about the man who had saved his life... was that he had saved his life. The single most pivotal person in his life was all of a single memory.

The first time he dreamt of Zack was just a few months after the death of the three brothers. He dreamt that Cloud and Zack were at the shooting range, Cloud fiddling with the awkward standard-issue Shinra assault rifle, Zack casting sidelong jokes his way.

"With aim like that, it's no wonder you didn't make it into SOLDIER," the older man teased. Cloud snarled back and pressed the butt of the weapon deeper into his shoulder, his right arm fumbling against the grip of the gun. He pulled the trigger awkwardly and gritted his teeth as the recoil shook his entire body. Staring down at the target, a mere twenty yards away, Cloud noticed with glum dismay that no new holes had been gouged into it.

"To hell with this," he said disconsolately.

"Hey, hey, hey," Zack interrupted. After pausing, expecting Zack to offer some sort of praise or advice, Cloud only received a crooked grin. "No cursing."

Angrily, he shoved the rifle at Zack, intending to storm off, but the other man was having none of that. Taking a firm hold of Cloud's arm, Zack led him back to his post. "C'mon, man, lighten up. It was a joke."

"Whatever."

"Yeah, 'whatever,'" Zack agreed, pressing up closely behind him. "Look, you're holding it all wrong. Stock? Shorten it up. Your arms aren't _that _long, y'know." Cloud looked up, angry, and Zack chuckled. "Alright. Now aim." Cloud did as told, secretly grateful for the help being provided. "Geez, look at you. Get that butt up on your shoulder. Bring your elbow in. How'd you get past boot camp?" Cloud did as told before squeezing off a round.

Zack head-butted him.

"Ow! What the hell!?"

"Aim, idiot."

"I did- Ow!"

"Through the sights."

Cloud ground his teeth again, tilting his head to peer through the sights. Zack's arms traced along his own, both their hands overlapping around the weapon. A voice breathed across his left ear. "Aim for the head... okay, shoot."

The bullet tore through the target's head, just a few millimeters off the center.

"Y'see? Nothing to it. Good job, Cloud." Cloud smiled in spite of himself, and turned to thank his friend.

And he woke up, confused and frightened and exhilarated at the same time.

His first thought was that he'd regained some sort of memory of his past life. Could it have been possible that he'd been dreaming of a long-lost memory?

Once the next dream started, in which a SOLDIER Cloud was leading an infantryman Zack into Modeoheim, he knew that he'd been simply dreaming.

* * *


	5. 07

-07-

Gongaga Village looked the same as it always had. The village had fared poorly after Meteorfall, and its small population of only a few hundred people had been whittled to less than half that with the slaughtering brought on by Deepground. Even so, he hoped that they were still there.

Their hut was situated near the back of the village. As he walked in through the main entrance, he passed a morose villager who was toting his meager belongings away from the village. He knew the feeling – there was a look in the newfound traveler's eyes that spoke of the massive trauma that came with losing everything that mattered in your life. A bit further on, he could see the graveyard. Originally, the muddy pasture had been used to put to rest those who had died at the hands of the Mako reactor explosion, but now... now it had mushroomed in size, with hundreds of still-fresh graves lining every inch of its surface. What pained him the most was the understanding that, beneath many of those stone and wooden markers, there were no bodies.

Scattered throughout the village were members of the WRO, but even they seemed at a loss for what to do. One agent walked past him into the graveyard and to a marker. Gently, pulling out one of the trademark red caps of the WRO, this one caked with mud and dirt, the soldier placed it on his comrade's final resting place. Then, after a quick swipe to the eyes, he too walked out of Gongaga Village.

He made it to the Fair residence, but the front door had been rudely and irreparably torn open. As he walked inside, he could almost feel the air of familiarity crawling over him. Zack had known this place, after all. Had probably known this hut for almost his entire life. Pale light from the doorway and two windows illuminated the room, reflecting off everything in a somber, dismal way.

The table had been carelessly tossed aside, upending its contents onto the floor. The dresser by the window had several gouges in it, obvious wounds from the Deepground raid. One drawer had been knocked open, spilling masses of now moth-eaten clothing to the floor. As he slowly stepped into the center of the room, he felt an immeasurable sadness at the loss that had befallen the two parents just before their demise. Perhaps they had welcomed death when it finally came. For almost a decade and a half, they had clung feebly to a fading hope that their son was alive, eventually going half-mad in the process. Or perhaps they had known from the start that Zack would die, and for the rest of their lives been trying to cope. He pulled one dust-stained stool up off the desolate floor and sat in the middle of the room, pressing his face into his gloved palms. If he had known then, he would have told them. He should have known then.

A small scurrying sound brought his attention to the tousled bed. A mouse flicked its nose at him from the base of the bed and scampered away. As he neared the mass of blankets, he could almost make out a shape resting on it. It felt so familiar to him, so warm and comforting. He came closer, and then he blinked as an old man appeared to be curled up in sleep. He blinked again, and the old man was gone. Terrible sadness, this one wholly different from the one he'd felt before, struck him. The sadness reminded him of his feelings at Nibelheim, the feelings of horrible loss... the sight of his dead mother. Tears formed in his eyes.

He frowned, confused. He had no reason to feel this form of sorrow. He certainly hadn't known Zack's parents well, if at all.

Without the parents to provide the answers he was seeking, he turned and departed from the deserted residence, once again leaving it with an air of quiet and barren isolation.

* * *


	6. 03

-03-

In the flurry of the moment, he didn't think about it. It was almost reflexive. Maybe it _was_ reflexive. Movement came from behind him, and he instantly unlocked a blade to parry the machine gun fire. More of those strange Shinra look-alikes swarmed around him, and he dove into them with a precision that could've only come from instinct. Two saber-wielding "SOLDIERs" fell, but three infantrymen took their place, firing on him from positions among the city rooftops. With an agility and speed that came as easily to him as breathing, he brought his right blade down on the nearest enemy and twisted his body, swiping an explosive arc of energy through the air with his off-handed sword.

Without pause, he positioned himself to deflect a quick barrage of incoming fire, and before the second flurry could reach him, he planted his feet and rocketed into the wall of the house behind him. As he traveled up the building, up and over the startled snipers, he recombined his two weapons. His feet bolted him into the sky at the apex of his leap, far above everyone, and, with a fierce energy suddenly roiling through his body, he clutched his Buster Sword with both hands. The energy rippled in, around, and through his muscles into the six swords in his grasp before he snapped his arms in another wide arc. Five blades shot out from the trail of that swing, each slicing through the air with a shimmering stream of light trailing it. An instant later, the commando team on the ground was engulfed in five distinct explosions, and he descended upon the trio of snipers, his forked blade crushing the first, and, moments later, plowing through the other two.

His senses continued to burn as he surveyed the quiet streets of Edge, but no more enemies were present and he finally made his way off the rooftop and back down to street level. "We're clear, you two. Come on, hurry."

As he waited for Denzel and Marlene, the "flurry of the moment" faded away, leaving him once again with his thoughts. He perused his actions from just a moment ago, and he had no idea how he had just done what he had. Waving his arms, mimicking what he could remember, he felt awkward, like his muscles knew what to do but were unaccustomed to doing it. He gripped the dismantled Buster Sword; the way his fingers wrapped around the red handle was both natural and slightly uncomfortable. Even swiping the sword felt both normal and cumbersome.

Sighing to himself, he quickly gathered his other weapons and returned to the kids to lead them down another alley. "Cloud... is something... wrong?" Marlene asked between breathless pants.

"No, it's nothing," he lied. "I just want to get out of here... I'll feel a lot better once... we're out of the city and somewhere safe... that's all." As they exited into an empty, tree-dotted park, he glanced around, agitated. "Where's Tifa?" he muttered. The park remained silent. The steady thwump-thwump-thwump of the distant helicopters kept him on edge, and he slowly led the kids from tree cover to tree cover.

As they neared the middle of the park, the flapping of propellers began to recede, a sign that this strange blitzkrieg was coming to a close. Suddenly, from the far side of the park, a familiar voice cried out, "Cloud!"

His heart nearly skipped a beat at the sound of Tifa's voice. The weight of apprehension and concern over his best friend's safety was immediately lifted from his shoulders, and he struggled to keep from rushing over to her and scooping her in his arms.

"C'mon, you two, let's hurry!" he urged, keeping his head on a swivel as they crossed through the largest part of open field.

"Aaah!"

Like a bat out of hell, a Shinra attack helicopter surged down from the dark clouds and stopped just short of crashing into the earthen park, hurling blasts of wind in their faces. He gripped his Buster Sword even tighter, and now he didn't feel any sort of anxiety or discomfort. "Go to Tifa, you two! Go!" he shouted, readying himself to cover their escape.

Whatever was wrong with him could wait. As he stepped back into the moment, he let his thoughts drift away and simply acted.

* * *


	7. 08

-08-

By the time he got back from Gongaga, the sun had long since set on Edge. There was a note of justifiable irritation in Tifa's voice when she met him in the garage, but they both managed to go to bed without a fight.

That night, he dreamed again.

The walls eventually pulled away to reveal a large clearing and an equally large building. Cloud slowly, cautiously made his way up to the front steps when a voice cried out, "One! Avoid unnecessary training!" He skidded to a halt, scanning the environment for the source of the... unusually spirited voice. "Two!" He felt the muscles in his legs tighten, ready to spring backward in the case of an ambush. The trees and bushes surrounding the clearing were especially thick. "Protect Wutai at all costs!"

Yes, whoever possessed the voice was most definitely a... younger person.

"Three! Ugly Shinra SOLDIER dudes... must be _punished_!" Cloud relaxed considerably at the youthful declaration of war and kept his gaze locked on one of the stone statues fortifying the entrance.

Just as he had predicted, the person who leapt out from behind the cover of the statue and stood proudly at the top of the stairs was no more than a young girl. "Who are you?" he asked, perplexed.

That unabashedly... _cute_… girl glowered at him and threw her hands on her hips as if incensed. "I'm Wutai's greatest warrior!" she proudly pronounced. "If you wanna go further, you have to go through me!"

All pretenses of combat were now lost on him, and Cloud simply stared at the young ninja girl. She sported the headdress of a Wutai warrior, though he had a strong urge to believe that she had likely acquired it through less than honorable ways.

"A kid...?" he muttered, ignoring the headband. "Look, you shouldn't be playing here. It's dangerous! Go on home to your parents!"

At those words, she made a leap – a rather impressive one, at that – to catch his back and shouted, "You're the one who's going home! If you intend on going any further, you'll have a fight on your hands!" That said, she dashed forward and made as if to attack him.

Cloud considered his options for a moment, but the mysterious little girl stopped just shy of him and vigorously pumped her fist back and forth, shouting out recited battle cries all the while. He couldn't help but grin at the effort and enthusiasm with which she attacked him. It was charming, at least.

If only he knew her name.

He woke up an instant later, with that name front and center in his mind. There was no way...

Yuffie.

* * *


	8. 04

-04-

At first, he thought that they were probably just due to all this Deepground nonsense – stressful situations causing him to relapse – but even after Vincent returned Omega to the Planet, his thoughts continued to focus on Zack.

The night directly following the destruction of Deepground, he was visited a second time by the nightmare, and he found no discernible reason for it.

The second nightmare was startlingly similar to the first. Cloud hung inside the same green tube, with the same foggy Mako running through his body. Exhaling a lungful of the nauseating liquid, Cloud glanced around the room, once again taking in the table, the equipment, the books, and the other detention chamber. In this dream, Cloud reached for the glass tube to scratch something to Zack and heard a baby's wail from far off in the distance. The cry cut through his ears and went straight to his core, and Cloud coughed a little as he scraped something into the glass. "Let's get out of here."

He knew what should've happened next, but it wasn't what happened. Zack simply gazed at Cloud through the green- and blue-tinted glass chambers, gazed at him with an unsettling degree of interest. Cloud felt the walls of his stomach contract with the sensation, and he nearly wretched into the Mako.

There was no sound as Zack suddenly broke eye contact and tore a deep gash into his left wrist with two rigid fingers, throwing up a cloud of inky red and black humor that stained the Mako current and slowly drifted upward. Cloud fell back against the other end of his tube and looked on in disgusted horror as Zack peeled away the skin and the muscles from his own arm. Then, with his fingers coated in his rust-red ichor, Zack traced something into the clear walls of his chamber. The blood didn't wash off the glass like it did from his wound, and Cloud could only stare as Zack's face contorted into some demonic and horrible... _thing_ that sneered in great pleasure at his horrified expression.

YOU ARE MY LEGACY

Then Zack reared back and crashed his head through the glass tube, snapping it into billions of sharp fragments, and Cloud suddenly found himself staring at a sharpened projectile as it slammed into and through his chamber and into his-

After that, more dreams came, and more "memories" came with them. Each time he woke up, he thought he had found another piece, another cherished memory of Zack that had been lost to and by himself. Each time he woke up, he was sadly disappointed when he realized that they were not memories at all, but simply dreams. The dreams of an overactive imagination, perhaps.

After a period of weeks went by and he became accustomed to these spontaneous bouts of wishful thinking, he was visited for a third time by the stallion of horror.

Cloud looked around the room, finding that nothing had changed since he last saw it. On the operating table, dampened from a lifetime of living underneath the earth, sat an evergreen-tinged blue hardbound book. There were no trimmings on it, nothing to differentiate it from any of the myriad books lying about. Turning his attention to the life-supporting cylinder next to his, Cloud faintly discerned Zack's nude form hanging suspended in the Mako – his hair flowed upward with the circulation of the green energy, looking almost like anemone waving about in the sea.

Cloud knocked gently, trying not to disturb the atrophied organs inside him, and when he could just barely see Zack nodding, he scratched as hard as he could. "Let's get out of here," he wrote into the glass, wincing against the pain as he stared at the Mako swirling around his fingertip and sewing the skin and nail back onto it.

Looking expectantly at his friend, he waited for some sign of confirmation. Nothing of the sort happened, though.

Instead, Zack brought his hand up to his face as if he were examining his own body. Then, in a long, drawn-out motion, he slashed into his own chest, gouging into the muscle and carving out pound after pound of pulsing, living flesh. Cloud looked on, flabbergasted and thoroughly frightened for his own life, as Zack continued to slice himself mercilessly, clouding the upper half of the Mako tank with his blood.

Soon, though, the foggy redness receded upward and only a small trickle of blood came from Zack's deep gashes. As Cloud stared out from his ineffable green prison, he saw the words contrasting sharply against the Mako.

YOU ARE MY LEGACY

Zack howled, his voice lashing out in demonic laughter, and Cloud cringed away from it. It came from every direction, though, a hateful, malicious, and soul-seeking cackle that bounded everywhere in Cloud's limpid chamber, reflecting and refracting off the walls until his ears were filled with dozens of the sounds, as if an armada of demons stood just outside the glass, and suddenly, the glass completely shatt-

He woke up after that third dream in such a cold chill that even Tifa was jarred awake, worried.


	9. 09

-09-

He continued to sort mindlessly through the scattered assortment of tools, mulling over the obscenely vivid, real, and somewhat nostalgic dream of a ten-year old Yuffie. The "warehouse" – little more than a large garage storing the Fenrir and the myriad packages he was often commissioned to deliver – barely echoed his distracted _tink_s and _clang_s. Half-heartedly, he checked under the front wheel enclosure and, grimacing at the mud that had caked and built up from his impromptu trip to Gongaga the day before, turned to get the hose.

The ring of the doorbell temporarily cut him away from his thoughts. Curious, he made his way through the back of the house to the bar entrance. Was it Vincent? Of all the former members of their little ragtag group, only Vincent still bothered to ring the doorbell when visiting. Still, even he never entered through the bar. It was something of an unwritten rule: they were all, for better or worse, as close as family, so none of them entered Tifa's house through the bar.

Even if he were here simply to drink away his sorrows (which would've been a first, but an understandable first), Vincent always gave them a call beforehand. Whoever this was, it certainly wasn't anyone he or Tifa knew.

The Turks, maybe? No, they weren't stupid enough to come talk to him in his own home.

As he entered the bar, he heard sniffling, the kind that came from a young child. Was it Marlene?

That thought quickly disappeared as he heard the sound of feet dashing away and the child's sniffle turned into a full-blown bawl. "Hey!" he shouted as he bounded the distance to the door and flung it open. "Hey, what's going-" In front of the door stood a young girl, no older than six or seven, who was crying furiously and reaching out to a pair of figures down the street.

"_Mommy_!_ Daddy_!" the young girl shrieked, falling to her knees while tears and snot ran down her face.

He kept his eyes locked on the pair quickly shuffling into a car in the distance and bolted after them. "Hey! _Hey_! Get _back_ here!" he shouted coarsely, frantically pumping his legs to try to reach the couple. "What do you think you're doing!?" They ignored him and he heard the small car thrum to life. "_Hey_! _Stop_!" He dove forward just as the vehicle sprang to life. When he landed on its curved rear hood, a desperate cry from within only caused his fury to boil even hotter. "I said, '_Wai_ah!" The sporty car lurched around a corner and he slipped off and splashed unceremoniously into the pavement. "Ugh! _Get back here_!" His voice reached only the confused residents nearby, though, and he silently cursed the receding automobile while dusting himself off.

When he returned to the girl, he noticed that her vehement cries had been reduced to sniffling whimpers yet again, interrupted occasionally by a body-wracking shudder. She wrapped her knees tightly to herself, rocking gently while pressing a hardbound book to her chest. At a loss for words, he slowly sat by the little girl and patted her on the head. When she cringed ever so slightly, he asked, "Uh... sorry... sorry you had to see that, little girl." When she didn't say anything, he continued to sit next to her. Finally, after a few minutes, her cries ceased and she simply sat still. He tentatively asked, "Um... What's your name?"

For the longest time, the girl didn't reply, and he let the question drift away. Then, after another few minutes, her thin, timid voice answered, "...Smirti."

He smiled. "Uh, well, okay, then. Hi, Smirti. I'm-"

"Cloud."

The pause lasted almost as long as last time before he asked, rather surprised, "You... you know my name?" She nodded, and before he could ask how, she handed him an envelope. "Cloud Strife" was written on its back in large, elegant letters.

"Oh..." he said smartly. He examined the envelope curiously for a moment longer, but his attention once again turned to the young girl sitting next to him. "Look, uh, Smirti, I don't know what just happened, but I promise, I'll do everything I can to get you back to your parents, okay? Then we can figure all of this out."

The last thing he expected was for her to shake her head.

He got to his feet and knelt down to look directly at her. She had a long mane of black hair uncannily similar to Tifa's, but it looked... different. It seemed to be a darker black than her brown-tinged shade. It seemed... incredibly familiar, like something just behind the curtain of his conscious thoughts. Ignoring her odd resemblance to... someone, he instead asked, "Uh, well... let's head inside, okay? It's a bit cold out here."

Eventually, the little girl agreed to the offer and he led her inside. While she sat on a rotating seat next to the bar, an untouched glass of milk in her hands, he tore open the letter and, as calmly as he could, emptied its contents onto the tabletop. It was hard to not just shred the paper in disgust; his hatred for the two reckless and irresponsible parents might've been misdirected – after all, they apparently knew him – but he found himself clenching the empty envelope nonetheless. To simply leave their daughter like they had... it was unacceptable. And when he found them, he intended to make them pay.

Unfurling the letter, he bitterly told himself to read – and comprehend – it in its entirety.

_Cloud Strife –_

_I'm sure you're quite confused and angry right now. We are Hammond  
and Mneme Nichols, and the girl with you is named Smirti. The two of us  
were scientists working under Professor Hojo when he experimented on  
you and your friend, Zack. One of the things he— we were interested  
in at the time was DNA manipulation, and one of the experiments we used  
you for involved that. And Smirti was the product of that experiment. We  
are so sorry for having hidden the truth from you. Ever since three years  
ago, when we realized that you were still alive, we've been searching for  
you, to make up for what we'd done to you._

_I know it can do nothing to alleviate all the suffering you've been through,  
but know that we are truly, truly sorry for what we did. No one deserves to  
go through what you and your friend did. From the bottom of our hearts,  
we are very sorry. If we had simply thought of the consequences of our  
actions, we could have avoided all of this. We've left Smirti with you  
because we both need to part ways with our pasts, to be able to start new  
lives, and to let her fully realize hers. We are both deeply, terribly sorry._

_Smirti is your and Zack's daughter. Please take care of her._

_- Mneme Nichols_

_PS – I know it is no consolation, but we've left the journal of our  
experiments with her. It can tell you everything that happened, from the  
very beginning._

He read through the letter once more, then again after that. A daughter? He had... a daughter?

_Smirti is your and Zack's daughter._ He scanned that line again, and again, and again and again.

There was no way. It was impossible... if she was his daughter, then why didn't she look like-

His thoughts snapping in every direction, he looked at Smirti just as she looked at him, and their eyes met, and he almost saw something in there, almost saw another face, another-

He saw Zack's face. Her hair was the same unique black hair as his, and her eyes radiated a vibrant and fair blue... but it was her lips. As he continued to stare at her, those lips curled up just the slightest bit, and he suddenly felt the same fuzzy, lightheaded warmth that he had felt with Zack.

"Cloud?" He glanced over at Tifa, now feeling very dizzy and pained with all the questions running through his head. There was so much, so many things that he didn't know, so much that was being thrown at him all at once...

"Who's this?" She shifted the bags of groceries from one side to the other to get a better look at the young girl.

He almost didn't reply, but as it turned out, he didn't have to, as his dau- Smirti answered, suddenly as cheerful as a flock of butterflies, "Hello! I'm Smirti!"

...his daughter?

No matter how much he tried not to, he wondered about the relationship between himself and Zack, what the relationship had _really_ been like.

* * *


	10. 10

-10-

The hardbound book that had been left with Smirti was exceedingly plain, with no markings of any kind on its dark, ocean-colored cover. It smelled of dry mildew and looked the part – as he opened it, the watermarked pages clumped together and flipped with heavy creaks. The front page was empty, but he only managed to start flipping through after carefully loosening the block of paper it was attached to.

The second page was already faded from moisture and bleeding and time. All he could see of the original text was a few unclear lines, though, in truth, that might've been all there was to it.

NOTES AND STUD__S ON THE STATUS _ND HE_LTH OF  
SPECI___ OF TEST NO. 34_8__23:  
EFFE_TS OF DNA MA__PULAT_ON ON _ETU_ WITH D_A FROM  
SOL__ER-CLASS MALE A_D J_NOVA-F__LED HUMAN M___

He grimaced, not at the imperceptibility of the writing, but at what little he could make out. Notes and... studies? on the status and... health of spe... species? specimen? specialty? of test number 34-something... Effects of... DNA manipulation? on something with... DNA from soldier... SOLDIER, maybe? -class... male and Jenova... Jenova-filled? fabled? human... something.

Under the barely decipherable title, he could make out the faint leftovers of a name, a name whose owner had long been dead, but a name that nonetheless filled him with insensate rage... and fear.

Dr. H_JO CRESCENT  
As_t. HA__OND NICH__S, JR.  
Asst. MNEME M_M__IA

So... this had been his doing as well. He gripped the book that much tighter, contemplating whether to close it or not, before flipping past a block of pages. The first "visible" page was hardly visible – stained into it was the ink from the past ten pages – but on the opposite face, he could fairly easily discern the writing. Whoever had written it had done so in the form of a journal.

_JUNE 8, 1994_

_We're getting close to conception now. I'm so nervous; I've developed a  
special bond with the fetus, but... I can't help but be a little anxious about  
it. After all, it's so similar to Project S. I'm scared, but I don't know why.  
I'm not sure what's going to happen to it. I don't want it to be another  
disastrous repeat of Nibelheim. I don't even know what gender it is. I hate  
calling it "it," but I also don't want to call it "him" or "her," either.  
Maybe Hojo's intentionally keeping that information from me. No, not  
maybe. Definitely. But I trust him._

_Oh. It just kicked. It's getting ready to come out, that's for sure. As for me,  
I'm going through all the usual pains and sores of pregnancy. Some days I  
wish Hammond could take care of it for a while. It would definitely save  
me some backache. I'm sure Hojo could do some DNA manipulation on  
him, too. Give him a uterus and fallopian tubes, see how he handles it._

_I mean, isn't that what this whole experiment is about?_

_JUNE 12, 1994_

_It's been four days since the last entry. Mneme had the baby two days ago,  
and it was a girl. Hojo argued against it, but we've decided to name her. I  
mean, really. Maybe HE'S fine with calling things "Subject A" and_  
"_Subject B," but the rest of us are only human. We can't objectify things  
forever._

_I'll be returning to the clinic in half an hour. Hojo wants me to keep track  
of Mneme and take notes on her. He probably wants to make sure she  
doesn't regress mentally, like his dead wife did. I don't think there's  
anything to worry about, though. Mneme's exactly the same as before.  
Well, she gets a lot angrier a lot more easily, but she just gave birth. It's  
nothing unnatural._

He turned the page, scanning for anything that shed any sort of light on the predicament he now found himself in. In his frustration, he filed past the first half of the book, whose pages clung and stuck together into one big clump, as if they were hesitant to reveal their secrets. The leaf he flipped to seemed to be in much better shape than those preceding it. It even lacked the dewy, mossy texture that the previous ones possessed, and the writing on it was clear and unblemished, meaning that it hadn't been written within the confines of... the underground lab, most likely. He carefully noted the date.

_FEBRUARY 21, 1997_

_It was so strange. I could've sworn I saw him pass through this town  
today, but I'd heard that he died long ago. Could it really have been  
him? That young man... It's been so long, I've already forgotten his name.  
I know he was "Code C" or something like that. But it was so strange. He  
looked like himself, but he had the same sword as that other man, "Code  
Z". Is that man dead? I'm frightened now._

_What do I do? Smirti reminds me more and more of him. Of them both. I  
fear what will happen if she should ever find out the truth. But I also want  
to tell her so badly, because she deserves to know the truth. He does, too.  
He should know what we did to him, what each and every one of us did to  
him._

_I have nightmares about it. Being a father, for all these years, I now  
finally realize the horror of what we did. I can barely look at Smirti  
anymore._

Code C? Code Z? He reread the passage, scanning his own distorted memories. Was this about him? Who was Code Z? Why was there someone else to worry about now!? Why didn't the damn thing just _answer his questions!?_

"God _damn_ it!" Pages tore out as the journal crashed into the far wall, denting the wood with its hard-edged corner before falling unceremoniously to the ground. He sat in the chair a moment longer, feeling again that strange discomfort with his own body. It wasn't like him to be so quick to violence. Or was it? Grunting, he stood up and made his way to the line of scattered pages, hoping to somehow escape his own thoughts.

He picked up the first sheet-

"Why are you reading this junk?" Zack asked, plucking the novel from Cloud's protesting fingers. "'A Blue Dove For the Princess?' I didn't know you were into girly fairy tales, Cloud."

"Give that back," he retorted, tearing the book away from his colleague and smoothing the page. "Besides, this 'girly fairy tale' is a heck of a lot more entertaining than you."

"Ooh, I'm hurt." They returned to their silence again, but Zack just had to keep talking. "Lemme see that after you're done."

"Why?"

"'Cuz I want to read it." Zack looked at him pleadingly, almost comically so, and Cloud couldn't help but laugh.

Slapping the book closed, he handed it to the SOLDIER. "Alright, but-"

Zack tossed the book casually into the metal wall of the training center, leaving a small dent in it, and lunged at Cloud. "C'mon, you won't ever make SOLDIER reading those things all day!"

-and shook his head, clearing away the sudden influx of memory. What the hell had that been? He wasn't sure, but the determined anger to escape his thoughts resurfaced and he continued picking up the (thankfully few) pages that had been misplaced.

Curious, he glanced at the first leaf he grabbed.

_MARCH 10, 2001_

_I've talked to Hammond, and we believe this is best. The past is tearing us  
apart. God knows how much we need to repent for what we did. I'll tell  
Smirti tomorrow. She deserves to know who her fathers are, and they  
deserve to know her._

_We'll send her to him next week. I hope we're doing the right thing._

"'Her fathers'..." he recited. How was such a thing possible? How could she have two fathers? It was clear that those two, Mneme and Hammond, were her parents.

He rubbed his eyes, but once again, he felt an odd, almost out-of-body experience, as if his body was doing something both long-remembered and awkwardly unfamiliar at the same time.

* * *


	11. 11

-11-

Yuffie was a frequent visitor to the Seventh Heaven, so it didn't come as a surprise that she materialized there a day later. The waiting had been agonizing, though, and although he knew that disrupting her WRO business over something as insignificant as a dream was selfish, he had barely been able to contain himself.

"Yuffie," he addressed her bluntly as she sat down in an empty stool at the bar and proceeded to shovel a half-pound hamburger into her tiny mouth. That morning, Tifa had left to do the morning shopping and he'd been invited to come along with them, but he'd declined. He had to wait for Yuffie, he'd told her. He and Yuffie had "important things to talk about," and Tifa, being Tifa, had promptly left without much more fuss.

"During the war... did you ever meet any SOLDIERs?"

"Hoe-ghuh? Eah, hauh." She stared up at him with a fry poking out from between her lips, unaware that he hadn't understood a single word she'd said. He looked back at her, patiently awaiting a decent answer, but she seemed to be more interested in the conversation than chewing. After a few seconds, she dutifully asked, "Hwoh?"

"...I couldn't understand what you just said."

Moments later, after swallowing her errant mouthful, Yuffie repeated, "I said, 'Soldiers? Yeah, lots.' Why the sudden curiosity? You're not hitting on me again like you did on our date, are you? 'Cuz if you are, you've got a really weird way of doing it. I mean, first of all, that was like... three years ago. Normal guys don't wait three years before asking for a second date. And secondly, that's a really weird question. I mean, normal guys don't ask a girl about other guys if they're trying to date her. Though I suppose in your case, 'normal' doesn't apply. After all, normal guys don't have a weird, superhuman body, either... or a ridiculous gajillion-in-one super-sword of death... or a gender-confused stalker. So again, why the sudden curiosity?"

He stepped back for a moment, actually physically disoriented by Yuffie's outflow of verbiage. The girl had energy – he'd known that for a long time – but the way it transferred to her speech was always frightening in just how... _fully_ it made the transition.

"Look, I..." He shook his head to clear himself of her words. "I'm not 'hitting on you,' Yuffie. I just... remembered something last night."

She brought her hand down, gazing up at him with mock curiosity. "Ooh, really?" she monotoned. "I still don't see why you had to ask me about meeting any soldiers." She returned to her meal, dipping the burger into a large splattering of ketchup.

"Not soldiers, Yuffie. SOLDIER. Did you ever meet a SOLDIER?" Yuffie looked dubiously at him, her cheeks puffed out and her lips pursed together. "A Shinra SOLDIER." She nodded slowly, trying to emphasize that yes, she _had_ in fact met many a Shinra soldier. He groaned. "Like me." When her eyes suddenly bulged and she furiously nodded in understanding, he brought a hand to rub his forehead.

"Yeah, yeah! Why didn't you just say that, Cloud?" she asked when she was finally able, flabbergasted.

"So you did meet a SOLDIER?" He tensed in anticipation. If he was right, then that meant that all the other dreams, no matter how wrong they'd seemed, no matter how many of them had put him in Zack's place, had some bit of truth to them! Then he could finally start to make sense of his memories!

...the waiting was agonizing, though. Yuffie tapped her chin with her finger thoughtfully, going through her own memories – which, scattershot though they might've been, were decidedly better organized than his.

"...sorry, nope."

The hope that had been building inside him despite his best efforts suddenly disappeared at the utterance of those words. All of them, every single dream, had simply been figments of his imagination. Of his own desire to know the man who had saved his life... the man who had been his greatest friend... the man who he had been imitating... the man who he was, in all likelihood, _still _imitating.

He tried not to choke as he thanked her and pushed away from the bar.

"Wait, wait!" Yuffie suddenly cried, hooking his sleeve in a vice-like grip with one hand while tapping her chin again with the other. The startled reaction almost made him rethink his misery, but as he saw Yuffie continue to struggle to control her high-strung thoughts, he decided that enough was enough. Patiently, though, he waited. It couldn't hurt now, after all.

"...yeah, I never met any SOLDIERs. _But_!" she quickly added before he got a chance to get away. "Hold on, Cloud. Sheesh, you act like I just destroyed your ego or something. Anyway, like I was saying before you so rudely decided to up and leave, I _did_ meet this one guy."

"'This one guy?'"

She nodded. "Yeah, back during the war, like you said. I don't think he was a SOLDIER, but..." Her eyes almost had a far away look to them for a second, and he suddenly wanted to get away. It felt like he was going to bring up bad memories for her. "...but... I remember thinking that, y'know... if I _had_ met any SOLDIERs, I would've wanted them to be like him. Why?"

He wasn't sure he wanted to tell her, but before he could even decide what to do, he saw Yuffie pull back in realization. "No way..." she muttered. "So that... that was Zack, huh?" She crossed her arms and looked down at her cooling hamburger, a ballet of emotions playing across her face. Of course she would've figured it out. Everyone who knew him also knew the story of the infamous Zack Fair, the mysterious SOLDIER who had saved him all those years ago. If he'd had a choice, he would've wiped Yuffie's emotions away; he now knew that those dreams – or at least _that_ dream – had some truth to them, but he didn't want them to have come at this price.

"Sorry, Yuffie."

Just as he said that, the selfsame Yuffie frustratedly swiped at her eyes with one hand and pounced forward, grinning from ear to ear. "Nah, nah, I'm _fine_, Cloud! See!?" As if to prove the point, her grin widened even more, and she even giggled at him, which caused him to lose some of the tension in his own body. "That sure explains a lot, though."

"What do you mean?"

She pointed at him with her right index finger and returned to her food with her free hand. "That guy... uh, Zack... he was my first ever crush. He was good-looking, tall, and from the stories I've heard, he was a really nice guy, too. So I mean... y'know. Hearing that stuff, a little girl starts to dream." She paused to eat some fries, though he had a suspicion that she was actually trying to compose herself. He could still see the gentle sadness lurking in her eyes, no matter how well she hid it. After gulping down the morsel, she continued, "I think that's why I crushed on you. I mean, at first, I thought you were just like him. Actually, you _were_ just like him." She tore a small portion of hamburger and dipped it in some more ketchup before popping it into her mouth. "Buh, afcher ooh... After you stopped being all 'I'm Zack with voices in my head' Cloud, I realized that all I was doing was being reminded of him. By the way, what's up with you and Tifa?"

He frowned, confused by the abrupt and unwarranted change in subject. "What about us?" he retorted. Yuffie glanced at him, visibly perturbed.

"What do you mean, 'What about us?'? Don't tell me nothing's changed between you two!"

"We're just friends, Yuffie," he explained, feeling unusually self-conscious at having to explain this for the umpteenth time.

However he said it, though, the young girl always sought to vex him. Brandishing a fry at him, she matter-of-factly stated, "Don't tell me you're really _that_ dense, Cloud. Tifa's still crazy for you." As an aside, she muttered, "Though I can't understand why..."

With the conversation now focused on him, he no longer felt like talking. "We're just friends, Yuffie. But thanks, anyw- What?"

"Did you hear anything I just said?" Yuffie snapped, biting into the brandished fry and tossing the uneaten end at his forehead.

He flung his hands up, exasperated. "Yes, Yuffie, and I already told you, we're just-"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard what you said, Cloud. But listen. Who did I first fall in love with?"

...had she said anything about a first love? "Uh..."

"Zack, you idiot!"she answered for him, leaning over the table to glare as menacingly as she could at him. "God, you _are_ dense! Don't you get it, Cloud? The only reason I crushed on you was because you reminded me of _Zack_! ...believe me, the real you isn't really my type... And I'll bet the only reason Aerith liked you was because you reminded _her_ of Zack! I mean, not to destroy your ego... uh, again... but you didn't exactly snap out of your little brainwashing until _after _she died, remember? But _Tifa…_ Tifabarely even _knew_ Zack!"

The words struck him with the strength of a jackhammer, and his current dilemma faded to the back of his mind.

There was no way. He knew she still liked him... Hell, _he_ still liked _her_. But they were just friends! They would _always_ be friends!

"Hellooooo, Cloud! D'you get it _now_!?Don't tell me I have to spell it out for you!"

His head began to spin and suddenly he felt nauseous again, like this newest revelation, along with all the other problems he was having, was weighing him down. Stepping back, he massaged his face with a gloved hand and closed his eyes.

Everything was crumbling around him...

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, Cloud... O Fearless Leader, you okay?" He nodded glumly, his head still aching and his eyes still closed. "I don't get it. What's wrong with you today?"

He groaned and laughed self-mockingly through his fingers. If only she knew, he thought. "It's complicated, Yuffie."

"Y'know, you keep saying that, but it seems pretty simple to me."

"No, no, not that, Yuffie. ...Thanks, though."

"...uh... you, uh... you okay? You look like you've gotta barf. You're not gonna freak out, are you?"

"No, Yuffie. I've just... got a lot to think about."

"Okay, then... uh... I'm gonna go use the bathroom now."

"Have at it."

* * *


	12. 12

-12-

Yuffie left soon thereafter, and he attempted to work on his bike until Tifa and the kids came back.

Considering everything that had happened since yesterday, Tifa was taking things particularly well. She, like him, had taken everything in with some form of shock, but instead of letting it bother her, she simply greeted Smirti and started treating her like a younger Yuffie.

...and Smirti certainly did seem like a younger Yuffie. From his first impressions of the little girl, he'd expected her to be shy and reticent, but immediately after Tifa started interacting with her, Smirti was bounding around and bubbling over and asking questions about everything in the house. For a girl who'd just been thrown away by her parents, she was most definitely resilient. Not that they hadn't discussed the next course of action. After serving Smirti a bowl of fruit, the three of them had begun planning out what they would do.

Or, at least, Tifa and Smirti did. He had stayed clear of the interactions, for the most part. It was nothing personal against Smirti, nothing like that, but...

He'd returned to the bike shop and tinkered with his bike until night time. Marlene and Denzel barged in every now and then, followed closely by Smirti – they always liked Yuffie, so it was no surprise that they reacted to her with just as much zeal – and he always took pains to ignore eye contact with her. By the time he was done, nothing had been touched on his bike; even the caked mud remained under the wheel enclosures.

He entered the room quietly, hoping to not disturb Tifa – it was the weekend, but he still didn't appreciate the idea of drawing her ire. As quietly as he could, he went through his nightly routine and tucked himself into bed. As he turned to look over Tifa's sleeping form, he wondered again if there was a word to describe her sleep. The way the blankets hugged the shape of her body, the way her beautiful chest rose and fell, the undeniably innocent yet sensual way a strand of hair played at her parted lips... He decided again that there was no word to describe it.

Something caught his attention, though, something that rested next to her. Smirti.

It shouldn't have caught him off-guard, he realized after a moment. It was only natural for a six-year old girl to not want to sleep alone, especially in an unfamiliar place such as this. Still, he felt disturbingly lightheaded as he watched her wrapped neatly against Tifa's body.

Her eyes suddenly fluttered open and he immediately shut his own, fearing the awkward silence that would settle between the two of them. He didn't want anything to do with her yet; he was tired, and he needed his sleep. Even as his breathing slowed and he relaxed into the bed, though, he could feel her eyes on him.

Smirti... the girl who reminded him so much of his dearly departed Zack. Where had she come from? How had she been born? How had Hojo done it? Because it was obviously something that only Hojo would've done.

...was she really his daughter?

He turned his thoughts away from that question. Whether she was or not was irrelevant. Once they found her parents, which would likely be tomorrow if he had anything to say about it, then she'd be out of his life again and he'd be able to focus on the constant problem of his recurring dreams and nightmares. Especially his nightmares.

Eventually, he did manage to fall asleep, and just before consciousness took him, he half-imagined and half-dreamed of the sound of rustling fabrics, and along with that sound, he might've smelled something eerily familiar to him, something his mind had most likely conjured up.

* * *


	13. 13

-13-

After he managed to fall asleep, he again dreamt of the Nibelheim laboratory.

The Mako chamber swirled around Cloud, and as he observed his surroundings, he made out the bookcases in the distance, the table in the center of the room, and the many scientific tools to his left and right. From the chamber next to Cloud's came a faint _thump-thump_ meant to catch his attention.

Cloud turned slowly toward the faint din, the swirling weightlessness of his insides threatening the integrity of his stomach. Zack smiled at him through the foggy green of the Mako chamber; he always smiled, as if he knew that the simple gesture always gave Cloud some measure of hope. It gave Cloud the ability to focus his attention above all the alien chatter that had, over the course of the past five years, somehow wormed its way into his head.

Cloud couldn't afford a smile to return, though, so he simply placed a thin, weak fingernail against the glass. The mental imprint of Zack's grin guided Cloud's finger, gave him the determination to continue even as the sharp glass sliced into his skin, even as it tore and ripped his nail. Finally, after finishing his work, Cloud looked back up and acknowledged his friend.

"Let's get out of here," Cloud had scraped into the glass walls. He even managed a weak smile against the voices that swam through his head.

Zack nodded and scribbled something else into his side of the chamber.

"Feeding time – that's our chance!"

As Cloud read the words, a new composure took away the anxiety and nausea. It had taken five years, but they would finally get out. Not even Hojo's experimental voices in his head could do anything to stop that.

The myriad chattering began to crowd around Cloud's head again, but for the first time in a long time, he ignored them and closed his eyes to sleep.

An instant later, Cloud awoke to the sound of a booming rap on the walls of his chamber. The sound reverberated throughout his skull, causing him to groan in pain. After a moment, Cloud began to notice something else... a rushing sound. A feeling of settling, of gravity returning. A sharp hiss that spiked through his ears like a snake. Then Cloud was falling...

Something strong yet soft pressed into Cloud, slowing his descent. Hard. A hardness accompanied by bitter, bitter cold. Cloud shivered, the iciness traveling through his entire naked body.

That coldness and hardness continued to freeze him until he was suddenly shaken, and then Cloud was dimly aware of traveling... moving... damp air against his skin...

And the smell of someone close to him. Someone to whom he trusted his whole life.

"...Z... Zack..."

* * *


	14. 14

-14-

The smell of Zack lingered even after consciousness robbed him of his wearied sleep. For once, though, he was not abruptly pulled from sleep with some name or place or terror teasing him just behind his eyes. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, he felt assured that the dream... had been a legitimate memory. Not some horror-tinged nightmare, not some mismatching of Cloud and Zack and everyone else, but a true, dear memory. And one he knew well, at that. One of the very few that he actually possessed, and one of the very few that he treasured. It was a bit ironic, actually. The only things that he knew were true memories were things that had happened while he was being mind-raped by Jenova. Everything else had a sense of surreality to it.

His eyes opened slowly, methodically, a strange peace filling him. It was nearing dawn – the streets and buildings outside the window were already beginning to show signs of light. The morning dew was just beginning to stain the glass windows of the room, signaling the end of a cold night. He looked over, but Tifa's bed was already vacant; she was most likely still practicing her martial arts outside. The scent of Zack was still strong in his mind, and he had the distinct impression that it was the reason for the morning's seeming tranquility.

It was then that he felt an odd presence against his body.

Nestled close to his left shoulder, Smirti yawned in her sleep and pulled the blanket closer to herself. For a moment, he wasn't sure what to do. The presence of the young girl threw everything off for him – had been throwing things off for him since she was forced into his life two days ago – and he stayed put a while longer, unable to muster the resolve to tear himself away for fear of waking her and enduring... something. He wasn't sure what would commence once they talked, but he knew that he wanted to avoid it for as long as possible.

Suddenly, Smirti pressed herself completely against his chest, catching him once again off-guard. His face was uncomfortably close to hers, much closer than he wished to be to someone he scarcely knew. Her unsettling resemblance to Zack only made it that much more awkward; every feature on her face mirrored his best friend's in some way or another. He drew back with a heavy twitch, drawing breath as he did so-

He sniffed again, tentatively, almost unsure of what he had just experienced. What was...? Nervously, anxiously, he inched back to Smirti's baby-fat-round face and breathed in...

It seemed to lull him, as if smoothing the choppy waters of his mind. He was completely disturbed by this turn of events and immediately removed himself from the bed and went to take a shower.

It only later occurred to him that this was the first morning in many mornings in which he hadn't felt at odds with himself, in which he hadn't felt that nagging sensation of being uncomfortable in his own skin.

In the shower, he once again gazed at the water droplets as they fell down his face. The drops of water, all of them were separate, but all of them fell into that same porcelain emptiness.

* * *


	15. 15

-15-

By the time he came downstairs, Tifa was rummaging through the day's shipment orders, boxing packages according to their destinations and shipping process. When she noticed him, she immediately stopped what she was doing and came to him. "Hey," she said, and it was obvious from her tone that she already knew what was troubling him.

"Hey." They stood in silence for a moment, sharing a surprisingly intimate moment in the middle of the hallway, before he continued, "Are you hungry? Let's get some breakfast."

She nodded, apparently as flustered over the silent conversation they'd engaged in as he was, and followed him to the dining room. "Hold on, I'll cook us-"

He shook his head, following her into the kitchen. "Here, I'll help out." When she looked disbelievingly at him, he pressed, "I'm serious. Besides... there's stuff we need to talk about."

That brought a smile to her lips, and he was lifted up considerably by that gesture of good faith. It seemed she'd also been wanting to talk since Smirti first appeared to them two days ago. "Okay, sure," she agreed, moving smoothly around the kitchen to gather various bowls and pans. "What do you want to eat?"

"Omelettes?"

"Sure. Uh..." She puzzled over the order for a moment, before nodding to herself. "Can you get started on the vegetables, then?"

The act of simply cooking was something he hadn't done since he was... young, but, like riding a bike or playing an instrument, his muscles fell right into place – by the time they actually started talking, he had already begun dicing a small onion.

"So?" Tifa began, her back turned to him as she checked on the heat of the pan.

"I don't know," he admitted, taking a break from his chopping to look up at her. He couldn't help but stare at her backside for a moment as her hips gently rocked back and forth. The absence of a knife hitting the board caused her to look back, confused, and they met gazes for a moment. Again, there was an intimacy in that moment that made him shiver inside. But the moment passed and he broke eye contact to continue chopping. "Well," he stated after half the onion was hacked to pieces, "I had another dream last night."

"The same one?"

He shook his head. "No... this time... this time it was different." This caused her to turn her attention fully from the cutting board, where she was currently going to work on a large green pepper. "This time... it wasn't a nightmare. It was... it was one of my memories."

"Really?" Tifa tilted her head slightly in thought, turned back to her station, and continued what she was doing. "So... you want to talk about it?"

He remembered that same question just a few days before, and he thought about all that had happened since then. "It was... it was strange. I dreamt about escaping from Nibelheim with Zack." He paused again, trying to bring back the dream, knowing that it was as hard as trying to remember his first birthday. "It was never like that before, though... I remember... yeah." He smiled as he put the knife down to examine his disfigured index finger. It seemed to relax him, this self-made symbol of everything he had gone through all those years ago. "This time, it was different. I could actually _smell_ Zack."

Tifa didn't respond, instead taking the bowl of diced onions from him and throwing them into the pan. "I don't know, Tifa... these past few months, the things I've been remembering about him... I don't know. I... I'm not sure what he really... _meant_ to me."

"What is it that you remember?" she asked gently, trying not to intrude, and he knew it, and that was why he trusted her more than anyone else in the world.

"I remember... I don't know. Stuff like... like his smell, like the way he acted..." He laughed once and continued chopping, this time a stalk of green onion and some cilantro. "You know... it's just like Kalm all over again. Sometimes, it feels like a real memory, but other times, there's always something that's off. So I can never be sure if any of it is real or not."

There was nothing to say to that, and so they cooked in silence for a while longer, he dicing various ingredients, she frying some of those ingredients. Eventually, the mixture of vegetables, mushroom, and meats were placed in a small plate to await the cooking of the eggs, which he'd beaten to an airy, frothy consistency.

"I think..." Tifa finally said as she swirled half the egg mixture around in the pan. "...I think you'll be alright, Cloud."

"I hope so." He tried not to sound too disbelieving, but she caught it immediately... like she always did.

"I really do," she insisted. "I think the reason why you're so frustrated by all this..." Tifa looked at him to make sure he was paying attention. "...is because, unconsciously, he really _did_ mean a lot to you."

"I know he did," he insisted back.

"Do you?" she retorted before throwing some shredded potatoes into another searing pan. "All you really remember is that he saved your life, right?"

He opened his mouth to answer her, but found his voice unwilling. She had a point...

"You said so yourself," she began again, turning back to the eggs. "'I'm not sure what he meant to me.' I think you're still confused about how much of him is inside you."

Again, he found it hard to come up with an argument against that. It certainly did seem to explain those strange experiences he'd been having for months now...

Tifa prepared five omelettes, then turned to the hash browns and likewise ladled them next to the eggs. He looked curiously at her before realizing who the last plate was for. Grabbing a plate of toasted muffins from the counter, he followed her back out into the dining room, anticipating the new development in their conversation.

Once the table was set, they continued.

"You might be right..." he conceded, cutting a piece of omelette without much interest. "But... these memories, or dreams, or whatever they are, they're not helping me at all. They're only getting me more confused. And if I can't even tell which are real and which aren't, how am I ever going to figure out how much of Zack is inside me?" As an afterthought, he added, "What if none of them are real?"

Tifa shook her head at that emphatically, and her hand seemed to leap across the table to grasp his. He was momentarily distracted by the gesture. "Don't think that way, Cloud. Look, I..." She stopped, pulling her hand away from his, considering her next words.

"Tifa?" he asked. Yuffie's words rang clearly through his head – _"Tifa's still crazy for you"_ – but he brushed them off. Now was certainly not the time.

"I believe in you," she finished. "I know it's not much help, but I do. I know that you can figure out the truth from those dreams, Cloud. After all, you figured out that last night's dream was a memory. That's a start, right?"

The realization was startling for him, like he'd been wandering in a dark forest and had just now found a guiding star. Yes, last night's memory _was_ a memory. He knew that for a fact.

He knew that for a fact...

"Thanks, Tifa," he said, and he grasped her hand again. The action was not lost on her, as evidenced by the warm way in which she squeezed back. "That means a lot to me."

They stared at each other in silence, a third silent exchange issuing forth. There was something between them that hadn't existed just a moment ago, and he was both scared of and anxious to realize it.

"Heeeeeeey!" A small, black-haired girl tumbled down the stairs and into the dining room, clad in one of Marlene's old pajamas and long hair spilling dredges of water to mark her path. "Hey, hey, hey! Look!" With the exuberance and enthusiasm that only youth could provide, Smirti suddenly lurched forward, her Zack-colored hair falling down around her face.

Nothing more happened as she simply stooped there, bent forward as the water droplets fell from her face and hair onto the floor. He gazed at her display with a sense of disbelief, but one that he hadn't known before. A... delighted disbelief.

Tifa, of course, didn't know what she was doing, but he could tell right away.

Maybe Zack _had_ done that. Maybe Cloud had done that, too. Maybe, but it didn't matter. She did it. He did it. It was as much theirs as it was Zack's or Cloud's_._

He suddenly felt that sorting through his memories was going to be much easier from now on.

* * *


	16. 16

-16-

The rain was pouring. When had it started? He couldn't be sure, but it was turning the earth to mud. He tried to lift his head, but there was barely any strength left in his body. It had been that way for a long time.

He was crawling. Crawling to where? For what? The muddy water soaked into his clothes... no, they weren't really his clothes, they were a bit big and more than a bit smelly, but that was irrelevant.

The rain continued to pour as he crawled through the mud, and as he got closer to... somewhere, he felt some strength return. His head turned, and he saw, scattered around him, broken weapons and helmets. Many had been cloven cleanly in half. The earth was riddled with metal; surrounding him, the death toll stretched for what looked like miles. His strength waned and his face fell back into the mud, staining the side of his head a murky brown. It was no matter – he was making his way toward something, and something else told him that it didn't matter what he looked like when he reached it.

There was one thing the rain couldn't wash away. Stagnant blood pooled around him, diluted but not gone on this particular flat expanse of rock and mud. There had been a fierce battle here; that much he could discern through the haze of voices clouding his mind.

He looked up one more time, and this time, he saw something. Something at the edge of the... the cliff, that's what it was. He was on a cliff, and he was crawling to the object on the edge of an outcropping.

As he neared it, though, something screamed inside him, yelling at him to stay away, to forget! forget! forget! don't go there and see! and he realized that there was something incredibly sad over there, something that he, for the life of him, did not ever want to experience again, because it was something that tore at his heart with grief and suffering of such pure quality...

...but he continued to crawl forward, inching along this desolate, drowned, bloody field. He got closer, the mud washed off his face, and he could make out a boot. He was crawling toward a person, and he didn't want to, he didn't want to experience this heartache again. He made it to the person's side, and the wounds stood out like bloody stars against a cotton sky.

There was so much blood coming from the person, pulsing out from wounds and pooling around him like some sick halo... Bullet holes, sword gashes... so many holes... They were innumerable, and he struggled both to tear himself away and to continue his mortifying journey, and then his choice was made for him as he stopped above the person, a man, his best friend, the one who had saved him, his savior, his...

"Z-Zack..." he whispered, almost out of breath and completely ready to fall at his side and let grief overtake him. No, he didn't want to remember this! He didn't want to relive this part of his memories-

"For the... both of us..."

"Both..." The voices howled and laughed at him, but the man underneath him seemed to push them away with his very presence. He didn't care about the voices, he cared about him, about his deepest friend, his brother. "...of us?"

"That's right..." The blood continued to stream from his forehead, but Zack's eyes were still the same iridescent fair blue, and he knew that Zack wouldn't die until he finished what he had to say. So much pain, he could see it in the man's eyes. "...you're gonna..."

"'You're gonna...'"

The strength it must have taken to lift that arm, he couldn't fathom. When he felt the gloved hand grasp his head, he remembered the shooting range, the closeness of their bodies, his warm breath tickling over his ears.

"Live."

The commandment... yes, the commandment was punctuated by forcing his head down into a weak embrace, a touching gesture of camaraderie and love and protection, even in these moments. "You'll be... my living legacy."

And this time, there was no Mako chamber, no hallucinogenic artifice, nothing to alter the dream, the memory, the most cherished of all his memories. And that was the worst of all, because he knew that no matter what he did, this would never change.

But there was still a sense of... honor. Not just in Zack, but in the words he spoke, in the air around him. He was Zack's living legacy.

"My honor... my dreams... they're yours now."

The Buster Sword was in his hands now, large and imposing and the ultimate symbol of what Zack was and what he had been.

And as the dream came to an end, he knew that this would be the last dream he had. Because it was the most important one.

"Embrace your dreams..."

* * *


	17. 17

-17-

"...If you want to be a hero, you need to have dreams."

The transition from sleep to wake was slow and undifferentiated. He still felt Zack's hand on his head, as well as the blood on his cheek.

But when he awoke, there was only a deep sense of appreciation.

"Thank you," he whispered to no one in particular. Next to him, Smirti had once again snuck away from Tifa's bed, and he gently squeezed her against him.

"I won't forget."

Across from him, Tifa lay in bed, once again in that same unnameable... no, she was lovely. That was the word to describe her. She was awake, and their eyes met, but the silence that drifted between them no longer felt complicated with secrets words and yearnings.

He smiled at her, and she returned the favor.

"You look like something good just happened," she whispered.

"Something did," he answered her.

It was strange, just how quickly things had changed. The little girl next to him, barely known for two days, he now felt like she belonged with him, like there was a reason for her insertion into his life. The memories, the dreams, barely distinct from one another, now felt like they were small presents from his past, all wrapped in different layers of wrapping paper but all containing some special knowledge about himself, and he intended to open all of them. The confusion, that perplexing sensation of being two people and one person at the same time, would eventually fade away.

"Whatever happens, I want to be a part of her life," he said, both to Tifa and to himself. "She's his living legacy, too."

There was no way for Tifa to understand him, but that wasn't important, because he knew that she believed him, that she would always believe him. And that was the greatest understanding of all.

"What will you do?" she asked.

"I don't know... but I don't care anymore. I want to... be something to her." He looked down at Smirti for a moment, at the Memory that had been bestowed upon him. Then he looked back at Tifa, and he asked, "Do you think you could help, Tifa?"

They stayed like that for a while longer, with Smirti sleeping next to him, and simply talked. He was no longer worried about which part of him was Zack and which part was Cloud.

He would figure that out with time. For now, he was him. Tomorrow, he would get up, he would stare at the water as it fell from his face, and he would go with Tifa and Smirti to the park. He would find Smirti's parents, and he would talk to them. He would sort through his dreams, he would pick apart the truth from the lies, and he would remember what Zack had been like. He would understand all that Zack had given to him, but he would also understand that he really _wasn't_ Zack anymore, in any sense of the word.

And after all that was done, he would tell Smirti stories about her other father, the father who once head-butted him for holding his rifle the wrong way.

-end-

* * *

**Notes:**

The dates – One of the conscious changes I made from the Compilation canon is changing the date in which the original game takes place. In Advent Children, Meteorfall is stated to have taken place in a vague 21st Century (20xx), and I changed it to 1997 so that I could more easily work in the events of this story. (The recent Blu-Ray upgrade, Advent Children Complete, gave Meteorfall a specific date, but I didn't want to bother figuring the math after the fact.)

The Journal – The title of the journal is:

NOTES AND STUDIES ON THE STATUS AND HEALTH OF  
SPECIMEN OF TEST 34582323:  
EFFECTS OF DNA MANIPULATION ON FETUS WITH DNA FROM  
SOLDIER-CLASS HUMAN MALE AND JENOVA-FAILED HUMAN MALE

Dr. HOJO CRESCENT  
Asst. HAMMOND NICHOLS  
Asst. MNEME MEMORIA

Hammond and Mneme Nichols – Hammond is named after John Hammond from the _Jurassic Park_ novels. Mneme is the Greek muse of memory. Nichols is the last name of my high school art teacher and track coach... no ill will intended.

Smirti – From "Smrti," Sanskrit for "memory" or "recollection."

"A Blue Dove for the Princess" – A fictional fairy tale from the game _Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War_. In the story, a princess nurtures a blue dove that has broken and/or malformed wings. When the princess falls deathly ill, the dove escapes the castle to find a legendary fruit that will cure any disease. Once it finds the fruit, its return voyage is hampered by a fierce storm. By the time it gets back to the castle, it finds out that the princess is already dead, and, exhausted from its journey, it itself dies next to her. A maid comes in, sees the two together, and decides to plant the fruit in the courtyard outside the princess's bedroom window, where it grows into a giant poplar overlooking her room.

* * *

**Alternate Ending:**

A/N: An ending that I had considered using, but which was eventually scrapped after the direction of the story changed. It would have involved a much more intricate and delicate treatment of the characters. Nobody else but Cloud would have interacted with Smirti – for reasons made apparent during the course of the scene – and every plot point and scene would have had to have been carefully manipulated.

-17-

"...If you want to be a hero, you need to have dreams."

The transition from sleep to wake was slow and undifferentiated. He still felt Zack's hand on his head, as well as the blood on his cheek.

But when he awoke, there was only a deep sense of appreciation.

"Thank you," he whispered to no one in particular. Across from him, Tifa's bed was empty, and he heard the sounds of another morning exercise from the yard below.

"I won't forget."

Slowly, the presence of Zack drifted away, and he got up and took a shower. As he stared at the water pellets dropping from his nose and into the endless porcelain emptiness, he remembered how, just a few days ago, he had wondered if it was his habit or _his_.

He remembered. That thought comforted him in many ways. He remembered. He _could_ remember. And that was the key.

After he finished dressing, he went downstairs to get some breakfast and check on Smirti. He didn't see her in the dining room, which was an oddity – Tifa would have made something for her, even if she was just a guest of the house for a few days. When he checked in the yard where Tifa was practicing, he found only Tifa and a calm, even-minded atmosphere.

Tifa smiled lovingly at him, and he smiled back. But he still didn't see Smirti. Where was she?

Grimacing, he searched the entirety of the residence, but there was no sign of the little girl. Had she snuck out? Where would she have gone?

But it didn't feel like she was gone. Strangely enough, he could still smell her aura in the house. She smelled like his dear friend Zack, and he felt the strength of his memories in the core of his soul, like a warming fire in the middle of a camp.

After half an hour of fruitless searching, he returned to the living room, where he had left the book on an empty cushioned chair, colored a soft, nostalgic fair blue.

...the book wasn't there, though. Neither was the letter. In their place, he found only a small, hardcover children's story. "A Blue Dove for the Princess." Where had the journal gone? Was this what he had been reading all this time? Why was there no trace of Smirti?

He sat down and opened the front cover. The pages felt watermarked and rough to the touch, like they'd been left in a damp, humid environment for many years. As he curled the pages and flipped to the first stanza, a voice called out from over his shoulder. "Memories are little stands against the flow of time, Papa."

Immediately, he turned to acknowledge the voice, but Smirti was no longer there. There was only an empty room that was very lonely... yet there was a sense of being to it, a sense of... intangible resolve. He knew she was there. He could still perceive her aura, the remnants of her short time with them. With him.

She was his Memory.

His smile broadened and he returned to the book, feeling confident. He would figure out who Zack and Cloud were with time. Today, he would read this poem, and he would remember what it had meant to him. He would notice the dent in its corner, and he would remember what it had meant to _him_. He would go with Tifa and the kids to the park. He would sort through his dreams, and he would remember what Zack had been like. He would understand, finally, all that Zack had given to him.

All in due time.

For now, he sat, contented, wrapped in the fair blue chair, and he marveled at the Memory that he had finally accepted into his life.

-end-


End file.
